The purpose of this paper is to evaluate ethics in accounting and financial decision making. I will describe how legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility impact management within the organization.

We may seem to be distant from the very high profile corporate ethics issues fo today. Today we hear about Marta Stewart, Scott Sullivan (CFO of World Com), and the family business bungling of Adelphia. We only hear about these cases because they are high profile cases that crossed way over the ethical boundaries of good business and corporate social responsibility, and became criminal acts. These criminal acts defrauded individual employees of funds they thought where safe, and defrauded our government out of tax dollars. No one knows what drives these individuals but it is an uncomfortable trend to see when managers on the corporate ladder can put themselves above the law. We may not be to distant from this type of unacceptable corporate social responsibility, I am sure it goes on at the lower levels also.

English: Chart depicting the major kinds and inter...

English: CSR approaches CSR framework

Michael Oxley , U.S. Senator from Maryland.

Thank goodness for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Today a company cannot succeed without incorporating into its strategy the means to avoid legal issues derived from poor corporate social responsibility and ethics. Proper Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) enable companies to manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society.( http://www.business-ethics.com/)

The following diagram from Mallen Baker best explains the interrelations of business in society. It point out the many stakeholders we have, and why we must be dilligent in using proper ethics within our corporate social responsibility to these stakeholders.

Figure 1.

We as an organization know that the only way to effectivley meet the challenges and sustain success we must invest in the knowlwedge,experience and commitments of the people as valuable human assests.

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7 pages41May/20090.0

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